The Deepcombers

Chapter Fifty Three

The green door opened without warning and Lon fell backwards through the threshold while still asleep. His head hit the floor and one tablet slid forward and struck him on the chin. "Oomph." He pushed away the Toll Stone and massaged his sore jaw.  

It was just after sunrise. Daoda's Gift hung low over the blue sea behind the Banta. Its morning rays were hot and bright and came-in horizontal onto the veranda. The waterfall thundered in the chasm at his feet and the sunlight through the steam made a rainbow in the sky. This was Ephram's Shrine and now the big green door behind the two stone columns was open. Lon had knocked-on-the-door in the night and nobody had come, but now someone was here.

The barefoot feigor who'd opened the door had hairy toes and ankles. His crude trousers and sleeveless shirt were made of plant fiber. He was a stocky brute with a big belly and his burlap pants were poorly stitched and shaggy with age. He managed his girth with a wide belt that was governed by a copper buckle oxidized green to match the general patina of his moldy garments. His outfit reminded Lon of a castaway who'd made his own clothes from vines found near the beach. When he finally looked-up at the feigor's face he gasped in amazement. The big galoot had a silver circle tattoo on his forehead.

"I'm Tot." The shabby sentry stuck out his hand in a friendly greeting. He was a morning person. "I know who you are, Sea Drover. I know you speak Common. Welcome to Midwash." The kind fellow had brown wispy fly-away hair, bushy eyebrows and whiskers and a gap-toothed smile which made him appear a little oafish.

"I'd heard it was called Watertop?"

"No. That's ten miles further up," Tot grinned his perforated smile. "We all know who you are. We call you the Sea Drover."

"Let him in Tot," an old woman behind the burly doorfeigor was dressed in the same style gunny-cloth garments. This grizzled old greeter was a bag of bones wrapped in burlap. Her skin drooped from her long arms like it was no longer connected to the flesh underneath. Her smile was kind, and she had all her teeth, but there on her forehead stenciled in the loose folds of her brow was the same round silver-ball.

Lon entered and stood in a vaulted chamber which had once been a cloakroom he reckoned for there were hooks on the walls for coats. The foyer connected to a much larger subterranean space. On the opposite side was a rear porch with columns that looked similar to the veranda on which he'd slept. He felt hot moisture come from the huge cavern beyond; he could hear birds chirp and he smelled a medley of scents which included fresh baked bread. 

Ephram's Shrine was not a pagoda, but a rocky chasm open to the sky. It was giant cave with a hole in the top. The skylight had been secured with a wooden perimeter fence around the hole. When he peered upwards, he could see the wood rim around the opening in the roof and he knew it was the same one-story green structure he'd seen on approach. 

The cavern was enormous and seemed to accommodate many different activities. Just like in Atarskal the main river channel bisected the community, and there were ponds and canals and countless little bridges. Towers and apartments accessed by ladders and scaffolding ringed the vast round space and laundry hung to dry on clothes lines.

Lon eyed the rooftops, ponds, and treetops visible in the cavity beyond the rear porch and his heart sank. This was going to be a lot more complicated than he'd imagined. Before his eyes were dozens of fascinating enterprises and all manner of amazing things to see and explore. In the foreground he saw how a wooden sluice comported some percentage of the creek over a wooden waterwheel which powered something that knocked a steady beat. There were fishponds and feigors with interesting jobs throughout the tropical chasm. How many people lived in this cave complex? Several hundred? A thousand? His mind reeled as he pondered how a mountainside shrine could ever be so sunny, warm, populated and productive.